Four straight failures but Kiwis should take note: A smarting Rohit Sharma is a dangerous beast

Rohit Sharma dragged himself back to the pavilion in Ranchi on Wednesday. He held his bat with both his hands and looked up to shake his head in disgust. The walk was slow, characterised by an accompanying stare at the grass.

It was a mediocre total that Sharma should have pounced upon. It was an innings that should have shown that to amass runs in One-Day International cricket is normal business for him. It was an opportunity for him to plug the team’s glaring hole – the inconsistency of the openers in the series against New Zealand.

But the 29-year-old had failed, for the fourth consecutive innings. This time, he had poked at an away-moving Tim Southee delivery that had pitched just outside off. He could have left it, but he chose not to. He had played and missed in the Kiwi pacer’s last over as well. BJ Walting accepted the edge gleefully. And for the fourth consecutive innings, the 29-year-old had returned to the hut without damaging the New Zealand morale. He had made only a brief appearance with the bat on each occasion.

Tentative and unsure

“It is a matter of him surviving 50 balls in the middle. He is a big-knock player. Once he has done that, he will score close to 150,” explained Dinesh Lad, Rohit’s childhood coach. “All he must do is control his shots early on in the innings, something he has not done this series.”

The sudden drought in one-day cricket had caught Sharma unawares too. In the fourth ODI, he decided to not take first strike, as he usually does. He waited at the non-striker’s end, and watched Ajinkya Rahane face the initial heat. Successive failures are not what Sharma is accustomed to in limited-overs cricket, anymore. While he stood at the non-striker’s end, he would have hoped for a change in fortune; he would have hoped for a return to runs. But even the decision to take second strike could not help him shrug off his indecent form.

Two caught-behinds and leg-before-wicket dismissals each, all of which could have been avoided, have left the Borivali batsman way down the run-getter’s list in this series. Even the likes of tail-enders Southee and Axar Patel are above the Indian opener, who has 53 runs in four innings.

Prior to the New Zealand ODIs, Rohit had three centuries and a 99 in his last 10 innings. Two of the tons and the 99 came in Australia earlier this year. And two of the three hundreds were big ones – 150 against South Africa and an unbeaten 171 against Australia.

A beast with the white ball

Ever since he moved to the top of order in January 2013, as India’s one-day opener, runs off his bat have been a regular feature. Before he was asked to open, his international career appeared to be heading nowhere. But then, he took to the move like he was a player born to open.

Rohit Sharma developed a swinging affair with the white ball. The white ball started to obey every order he would issue. With time, the Indian team reaped the benefits of this affiliation. As time progressed further, the Men in Blue almost took regular bright starts from him for granted, and he contributed heftily to the team’s success.

Thus, Rohit’s inability to provide the team with a steady start has stunned the side. With Shikhar Dhawan and KL Rahul injured, Rahane has been Sharma’s opening partner against New Zealand. But apart from a half-century in Ranchi, Rahane has struggled with another shuffle in his batting spot. While that could have been expected, Sharma’s silence with the bat has been deafening.

The 29-year-old played a delivery he could have left alone in New Delhi and Ranchi. He managed to nick both of those. The dismissals landed early blows to India’s chase in both the games. Targets of 242 and 260 should have been chased, but Rohit’s failures did not help. The rest could have finished the game too, but the stutter had been initiated right at the word go.

“If Rohit had struck a couple of bigger scores, India would have won the series by now,” Lad expressed. “But it is unlikely he will go an entire series without a decent score. With the kind of player that Rohit is, it will be difficult to keep him quiet in the next game.”

Beware, Kane Williamson

Yes, it is a challenge to keep Rohit quiet. Especially when he is hurt and his fire to plunder runs is burning. It was late in 2014 when the Sri Lankans had visited India for a one-day series. Sharma, though, had been out of action for two months owing to a shoulder and finger injury.

In his absence, Rahane had put in a couple of fine performances as opener, including a century in England. Ahead of the warm-up game against the tourists at the Cricket Club of India, Rohit was asked about how confident he was of regaining his slot at the top of the order post his time away from the game and Rahane’s success.

“I am an opener. I will open for India. And I will always prepare myself as an opener. I will even open tomorrow,” Rohit had shot back on the eve of the game.

True to his word, Rohit opened and showed to everyone concerned that he belonged at the top. His finger had still been giving him pain every time the ball would hit the bottom of the bat. But, hurt with questions over his opening slot, he blazed to a century.

Sharma was asked to take a break from the first three ODIs. But his intention to send out an even louder message when he finally returned to international cricket in the fourth ODI glared through when he annihilated the Sri Lankan bowlers. His world-record 264 took India past 400 and to another triumph. Injuries and questions over his position had pushed him to the wall, but he fought back with his bat.

Sharma’s situation may be different now, but his successive failures have startled the team. With the series on the line in Visakhapatnam, the onus will be on Rohit Sharma to help the team fight back with his bat.